Your state of mind is the key to your success when playing poker. The mental control you have influences the way you play. When you are focused on the game at hand, you will learn about the other players, likely hand probabilities, and quickly discover opportunities that allow you to gain the upper hand over your fellow opponents. As a player, it is important to control your emotions and a controlled player is the one who:

• Keeps their focus, and controls their emotions when faced with defeat. Does not become defensive when they compete.
• Has confidence in their abilities and lets the other players know this when they play.
• Does not let other players gain the upper hand by letting their opponents psyche them out.
• Remains positive. Regardless how unfavourable your hand may be,
• Getting frustrated about constant bad hands isn’t going to make your odds any better; it’s only going to make you frustrated, which can cause bad judgment once you do get a hand you can work with.
• Does not let their minds wonder or start daydreaming during a game. It is imperative that your mind is constantly focused on playing the game. That means knowing the probabilities of yours and your opponents’ hand.
• Stays patient. If you are too anxious to win the pot you can make foolish mistakes, making it easy for more experienced players to eat you alive.

A good poker player is in control of their every action. They are not only aware of their own state of mind, but the minds of their other players as well. They are relaxed, and easily adjust to the different players that enter the game, ready and waiting to defeat them as soon as they get the chance to take advantage of the way they play.

This entry was posted on Friday, March 19th, 2010 at 10:02 pm and is filed under Poker Strategy. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.